Walking Tour of downtown Medellin, Colombia

Dear Family and Friends,

Chuck and I signed up for a FREE walking tour of the center of Medellin.

Free Walking Tour Web Site.

If you vacation in Medellin I highly recommend this tour if you want to get off the usual tourist trek.  This tour is for able bodied people because it involves about 4 hours of walking.  I made the whole tour but I was exhausted at the end.

Our wonderful perfect English speaking guide.

We learned a lot about the history of Medellin and about the drug war.  Medellin was the most dangerous city in the WORLD about 15 years ago.

This tour takes you to places you would never see on other tours.  Places where the druggies hang out, the prostitutes conduct their business and some of the most dangerous places to be back in the day.

Since we were moving at a good pace, I didn't get the pictures that I would like, but we sure got the story.  We can go back and photograph now and know what we are taking pictures of.

Here are a few pictures taken on the walk.

Street musicians.

Some members of our walking tour.  Most were young backpackers and most of them were from Germany.

 This is the tallest building in downtown Medellin.  Medellin has a big textile industry and this building is designed to look like a needle on a sewing machine.  The small window at the top right of the building is where the thread goes through.

We went to places that tourists are not encouraged to go.  In this park the man in blue is running a one man casino.  The guy in red is betting.  He put his money down, the guy in blue threw three dice like objects.  The man in red won sometimes and the man in blue won sometimes.  We were moving along so fast I don't know about the outcome.

This statue is in Park Bolivar.  It is a statue of Bolivar, of course.  This is another park that is not in your tourist guide book.  It is where drug deals are done.  The park had quite a lot of sad looking folks but I was afraid to point my camera on anyone and take a picture.

This church is located at one end of the park.  Our guide told us that behind this church is where the real bad stuff goes on.  He cautioned us to never wonder back there by mistake.

After the tour, Chuck and I stopped at a pastry shop to have a very popular pastry of the region.  It is called torta negra.   It is a type of fruit cake.  Very moist with interesting flavors.

Chuck and I are going to go to some of the places we went on the tour and I will have time to take more pictures.

We are having a great time.

Love,
Nancy